The Tech College of Republicans has called on all the Texas state legislators for help in the funding of the new Texas Tech veterinary school.
Earlier this week, the group mailed out nearly 200 hand-written letters to legislators expressing to them their views, concerns and reasons why a vet school is needed in west Texas. The vet school would be housed at the Texas Tech Health Sciences campus in Amarillo.
“Texas A&M is the only one with a vet school and in Texas it’s pretty prestigious, and they don’t want anyone to come and mess with that prestige,” said Paul Callaghan, legislative director for the Tech College of Republicans. “So, Texas Tech, the second big name in agriculture in the state of Texas, they’re kinda worried. They [Texas A&M] don’t want that to happen at all.”
More than just a school rivalry in East vs. West, the students say they want to make sure their fellow students have more options in their choice of school and can have the opportunity to stay within the Texas Tech system if they so choose.
“Texas Tech has a lot of great students, and we don’t want to afford to lose them to Texas A&M,” added Callaghan. “Texas A&M has a great vet school, but we need to have two schools to be competitive.”
The president of the group, Megan McMillan, also emphasizing the region’s need for a vet school for the sake of farmers and ranchers.
“West Texas has a huge shortage of livestock and huge animal vets. Currently, out of the 6,620 vets in Texas, 180 of them are large animal vets. For Lubbock County, currently to go to take care of your cow or pig, you have to go to Slaton or Levelland.”
McMillan that budgeting for the new school has become an issue, which is why they’re hoping to gain more support from the state legislators. According to McMillan, the new school is expected to cost about $90 million total, so far the city of Amarillo has already given 15 million dollars to the project. The student organization is asking legislators to help them in funding $5.7 million.
McMillan also adds that while her group is a partisan organization, the issue they are working around is a non-partisan one. She says she and fellow members just want to help provide fellow Red Raiders more options in their career goals with a second veterinary school in the region.
The group expects that the earliest we could see the new school begin enrollment would be in 2020.
